


Quiet Twilight

by amuk



Series: The Beaten Path [21]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Bonding, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-27 06:04:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/658755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amuk/pseuds/amuk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath, it is hard to remember where their blood ends and hers starts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quiet Twilight

**Author's Note:**

> Day/Prompt: July 21st / "She was a wreck, but so was he."

The war touched everyone. The young children, the new genin, the recently approved chunin and jounin, it was a disease that spread through the ranks and into their cores.

 

For once, Sakura can understand why her mentor feared blood. The warm, sticky sensation doesn't leave her hands for days after the fighting stopped. Instead, she remembers, tastes the metallic liquid as it sprays all over her as another head rolls.

 

It's hard to think, harder to breathe. Better that she moves, immersing herself in healing the wounded. There are many, too many; emergency cots are set up inside and around the hospital, and still there are not enough for the wounded.

 

She can heal them, can take their torn ligaments and piece them together. She can do all of that, but not enough to take them off that bed quick enough for the next patient.

 

And the blood that covers her, like a set of red gloves, it doesn't disappear. Only thickens with each patient, hardens with each failure.

 

Naruto is out rebuilding the country, Kakashi an unwilling companion, and Tsunade is too busy healing, so it is unexpectedly from Sasuke that she hears the rebuke she is waiting for.

 

"You're overworking yourself."

 

His words greet her as she exits the hospital, wearily making her way home. Shock is probably the expression that worms its way onto her face, she has been having a hard time understanding herself lately.

 

(She didn't know what to feel after she got used to her fingers digging into flesh, the edges of her kunai blunt and caked red.)

 

"You have no right to talk. I know you've been rebuilding late into the night."

 

He doesn't let it on, but he looks exhausted. She imagines it mirrors her own face, the crows feet that surround his eyes, the haggard steps--she knows he still manages to look better than her somehow. If she were less tired and more open, she might have made a joke about inbreeding.

 

As it is, they walk, the streets bathed in the golden glow of twilight. 


End file.
